I'm trying to get some good shots at an ice rink, keeping in mind that I'm just beginning to attempt anything beyond point &amp; shoot. My thinking was to not get blurred motion in my shot I needed to increase my shutter speed. So I set my cam on shutter priority but the best I could get before the picture got way too dark was 1/50. As you can see, it is still blurred. Am I going about this all wrong? (the rest of the settings were - ISO 100, f 2.8, zoomed to about 6x.

Sorry about the netting in front but the only place in the rink where there is no netting is the filming platform and to do that during a practice would mortify my son.

I'm trying to get some good shots at an ice rink, keeping in mind that I'm just beginning to attempt anything beyond point & shoot. My thinking was to not get blurred motion in my shot I needed to increase my shutter speed. So I set my cam on shutter priority but the best I could get before the picture got way too dark was 1/50. As you can see, it is still blurred. Am I going about this all wrong? (the rest of the settings were - ISO 100, f 2.8, zoomed to about 6x.

Sorry about the netting in front but the only place in the rink where there is no netting is the filming platform and to do that during a practice would mortify my son.

Not a good shot

not in focus

1/50 TOO slow for action

f4 to smalll

you got it all wrong

for indoors and action its a big ask...

A priority fine

do this

set AP to f2.8 (max light)
set ASA speed to 200 or 400
you will then with above force a shutter speed to probably 1/125 or a more this will freeze action.

I've done this type of shot for indoor basketball and it's tough.Here's some ideas I've tried. Use manual mode. Set f2.8, ISO 400, 1/100 to 1/125, manual WB,center weighted metering, OIS2 and try to limit the amount of zoom. You'll have to post process to compensate for EV and do noise removal. Sounds like alot of work but do it a couple times and it comes pretty quick. If you batch process in your image editor you can save some time. Also try the panning mode on your FZ. Good luck:!:

Ok - I tried again, using the advice offered here. I did forget about the white balance setting though so I was using the default (auto).

Settings were as follows, AE priority - shutter speed 1/125 - ISO 400. There was alot of noise so I used Neat Image to clean it up. That was all the post processing I did. If you think I'm inexperienced at picture taking, you should see me at image editing!

I had to take it through the side glass and it wasn't particularly clean - better than through the netting I thought. Any input or more suggestions?

I don't mind at all - that made a huge difference! What exactly did you do? Was it overexposure that you corrected? And my very basic software doesn't have an "exposure" correction. What else might it be called?

Truthfully, the last two shots are better than I expected. Of all the indoor sports, ice hockey is the toughest! Not only are you contending with fast action, low indoor light, but also the ice! The last two are very good, and about the best you're gonna get from a non-dslr.

The only other pointer I didn't see mentioned in any of the posts, is to use spot focus mode, so that the camera doesn't focus on the netting instead of the players. If you use spot mode, look for a high contrast vertical line as the spot to aim at to focus.

I'm also new to this digital photography/processing, and have been experimenting. I've been using shutter priority set at 1/125th and iso 200 when I can. Some rinks I have to go to 400. I set the white balance by aiming at a bright white spot on the ice. I use burst mode quite a bit too. Nick is right about focusing. The net (or even glass at times) can throw off the focus. If you have to shoot through these, use spot focus. Otherwise, I use 1-area focus for action and 3-area focus for face-offs. If you use 3-area focus for action, the screen freezes briefly as it focuses, and by the time you can see again, they're gone! As you can see in the attached photo, the shutter speed needed to freeze the action can also depend on the direction they are skating. These boys were skating about the same speed. The one coming toward the camera is relatively sharp and the other is blurred. 1/125th wasn't fast enough. This photo was resized, brightened and sharpened a little. No cropping. I haven't been able to optimize the brightness or contrast yet (especially the breezers). My computer is soooo slow it's just too painful to try until I get a new computer.

I'm still playing with ways to improve focusing and optimize shutter speed and exposure. Would love to hear about settings that are working for you too.